The Body
by K.Henderson
Summary: "Because, Edward," She says. "You killed me and now you have to pay for what you've done." Her eyes are shriveled and shrunken into the sockets. "I pay for it everyday!" Her rotted fingers graze my knuckles. "Oh, darling, no. You don't."  A Ghost Story


_**The Body**_

Disclaimer; He is certainly not mine but everything else is. You'll see.

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><p>I knew who she was the moment I walked through the heavy oak double doors. The scent of mold permeates, the floorboards creak beneath my boots. I can...sense her, deep within my consciousness deep within my soul. I shut the large doors behind me, the rusted hinges creak<p>

There is little light in the front room, I stare directly in front of me. The staircase is there and beyond it is a long hall where at the end is the opening of the kitchen. To my left is a sitting room still filled with the old furniture that I so remember. To my right, another similar room only this one holds a long rectangular dinning table. I take to the left room, pass the old sofa ignoring the clouds of dust with every step that comes up from the old and worn moldering china rug.

At the very corner of this old sitting room there is a door where once there was a grand music room.

As I walk passed where the door had been into this room I am granted with wooden walls with chipped blue paint, a large oak bookcase with its books all covered in mold and dust and there, across from me at the end of that room, the entire wall is nothing but a large glass window and what sits in front of that window is a large piano.

I walk to it and I let my fingers lightly graze it touched by the very fact that it was still there as I had always expected it would be. I take my seat, I lift the cover and I play the chipped ivory keys. I'm surprised that the melody is out of tune, I am more then a little surprised that the piano plays at all.

I feel the ghost of a smile play on my lips, my eyes close then open slowly. If i could cry, I would. This house this room and this very piano...this is my sin.

I feel her there, behind me. Her tiny hands touch my shoulders and give them a comforting squeeze. She leans into my back impossibly warm and for a moment I let myself play into the illusion and I think 'This is what I missed.'

I incline my head to the side as I play. Her warm little bow lips touch the junction of my throat and shoulder. My fingers still on the keys, the tune drolls out and finally dies to din of silence takes over and I turn my head to stare at her.

Her eyes are green and bright just as they had always been. Her hair is golden curls held up precariously with a pearl clip. Her ruby little bow lips are smiling. I stare at her, take her in. Her white beautiful dress with lace and ribbons...and at the low collar I see there at her supple throat a wide and terrifying wound. The front of her white dress is stained with dark blood that should have already dried and it did. I remembered just watching her die and I remember seeing her bleed out and then the blood dried.

I remember how her body went through the changes of death, the rigamortis as I moved her to the upper room. The scent of excrement as it all left her. I changed her dress, I washed her body and I left here there. On her dead mothers bed I watched as her body faded away to nothing but bone. Every bit of decay fascinated me. As I watched her skin sag and rot, as I watched the flies and the maggots eat away at her body and finally the stench of death that permeated and left its mark within the entirety of the house. I remember it because I lay there, watching it. I lay there as though I belonged. Like I was still her man.

Right _there_ beside her.

I left at the end of that summer with a kiss to her glistening skull and I draped a sheet over her remains.

I played a tune on that piano before I left the house. How long has it been? 100 years too early for a visit, I know it. 80 years is not enough to repent for what I have done.

She leans toward me, I turn my body fully on that chair. I lift my head so that our lips may touch and they do. The kiss is soft like it always had been and impossibly warm. I lift my hands to trap her face in my grasp only now the texture is different, soft, slimy...

I open my eyes to the ghost of my rotting corpse bride.

And I smile in my madness of the guilt.

Why can't I escape it?

"Because, Edward," She says. "You killed me and now you have to pay for what you've done." Her eyes are shriveled and shrunken into the sockets.

"I pay for it everyday!"

Her rotted fingers graze my knuckles.

"Oh, darling, no. You don't. Everyday that you exist is a day of life I never got to have. You watched me die and then you watched my body rot away in this forgotten house in the woods you brought me to. I was your one and only gothic treasure and I loved you so much." She kissed me again. "Every smile you use, every moment of joy and every caresses of_ her_ body just solidifies the fact that you haven't suffered quite enough."

I close my eyes and lean into the soft and supple illusion of her.

She's right.

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><p><strong>...yeah, confusing, weird and twisted very twisted but I was inspired. Well I'll explain; She was a girl he was sweet on after his change and when they kissed he lost control and killed her. In his shock he put the poor girl to bed and watched her until she rotted. Basically, its a play on the kiss in the first book-he was so concerned about losing control so I figured why not give him a reason for that concern. It happened before he killed someone else he loved yadda yadda. I hope this didn't offend anyone. And yeah it sucked but damn...it was just so stuck in my head. Plus I love the idea of crazy Edward. Crazy Edward is almost as great as Stupid Edward. I don't like Canon Edward because...I don't like Twilight but damn, if it isn't fun to give him a personality. Anyway, review please!<strong>


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